America needs leaders who will rise above political opportunism

Posted: Thursday, September 23, 1999

Is one seat in the U.S. Senate this important to Democrats and Republicans? So essential that the president will set terrorists free to aid his party's candidate and Republicans will ignore vital needs to improve their candidate's chances?

That's the question reasonable Americans must be asking themselves in the wake of the Puerto Rican clemency brouhaha.

Was it Hillary Clinton's still unofficial Senate bid in New York that prompted President Clinton to offer freedom to 16 Puerto Ricans convicted of being part of bombings and other acts of terrorism that killed six people and maimed scores of others?

Is it an attempt to embarrass the president and cripple his wife's chances to win that is motivating Republicans to demand White House documents and call for an investigation of the president's actions?

It depends on who you ask. Democrats will say the president acted out of compassion. Republicans will say they are looking for justice.

Meanwhile, the American people grow more cynical about politics, turn their backs on the voting booth and concede the control of their government to lobbyists, special interest groups and those with the kind of money necessary to buy influence.

Whatever his motives, President Clinton was wrong to offer clemency to 16 members of the FALN, a leftist group that from 1974 to 1983 launched 130 bomb attacks on U.S. civilian and military targets in a deadly campaign to establish a separate Puerto Rican nation.

Setting these terrorists free -- some of whom still refuse to renounce the use of violence to achieve their goal of independence, an objective supported by only 4 percent of Puerto Ricans -- sends the unmistakable message that America is soft on terrorism, leaving all of us more vulnerable to future attacks.

Worse yet, rightly or wrongly, other radical political activists are likely to believe that if they have a bloc of sympathetic voters to use as a bargaining chip, they can commit murder and mayhem and get away with it.

Several leaders in law enforcement have criticized the president's decision, and even the man Hillary Clinton supposedly wants to replace, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, said the clemency move was a mistake.

But as wrong or stupid or politically motivated as he may have been, Clinton was within his legal rights as president to grant clemency to the Puerto Rican nationalists.

Given that fact, the motives of Republican leaders in calling for investigations are suspect. The president's political opponents have every right to question his judgment and criticize his decision. But beyond an initial round of reactions, pursuing the issue further smacks of the kind of crass politics the Republicans attribute to the president.

By setting convicted terrorists free, Clinton made a grievous error that may come back to haunt us. He deserves to be roasted by his critics.

But our leaders in Washington have other important business to attend to, and squandering time, money and energy in an attempt to discredit Hillary Clinton is not in the best interest of the American people.

Not only does it divert attention from genuine needs, it nurtures the cynicism a growing number of voters harbor toward politicians and government.

Americans are fed up with this nonsense. The political shenanigans of our leaders are an insult to the intelligence of people who see right though their transparent charades.

This country desperately needs leaders of character and conviction. As the 2000 presidential race moves into high gear in the coming months, the candidate who demonstrates those qualities will attract the kind of support needed to win the White House.